mandela showing me his prison cell on robben island. these two political prisoners were separated by great distances, but they were both marked by uncommon grace, generosity of spirit, and unshakable will. and they both understood something that i think we all have to grasp: the day they walked out of prison, the day the house arrest was ended, was not the end of the struggle. it was the beginning of a new phase. overcoming the past, healing a wounded country, building a democracy, would require moving from icon to politician. in a time when politics and politicians are sometimes the objects of criticism and even disdain, it is well for us to remember people fight and die for the right to exercise politics, to be part of a politicians are sometimes democracy, to make decisions peacefully, without resorting to the gun. that work of building democracy never ends, not here in the seat of the oldest democracy in the world, or in a country like burma in its new capital of nay pyi taw, where the speaker of the lower house where suu kyi now se